16. Dropbox IPO, Salesforce Investment: As part of its IPO, Dropbox is selling roughly $100 million in stock to Salesforce’s venture capital arm. Here are the potential channel implications.

15. Investment – IT Services: Elliott Management Corp. has bought a stake in Wipro Ltd., its first ever purchase of an Indian-based software outsourcer, according to Bloomberg. The New York hedge fund acquired 1.855 million American depositary receipts, or about 0.04 percent of Wipro’s share capital, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission, the report says.

14. Microsoft Surface Hub: Microsoft is getting ready to launch the Surface Hub 2 this year. The company confirmed on Friday that it is working on a new version of its interactive whiteboard, though it is not giving away many details on the new product as of yet, according to Thurrott.com.

11. SMB Cloud Services ROI: Small and medium businesses (SMB) can improve cash flows by up to 308 per cent as a result of the “dexterity and flexibility” enabled by adoption of cloud technology, a latest survey by Microsoft India claims, according to Business Standard.

10. M&A – Intel Acquiring Broadcom?: The revelation that Intel is considering buying Broadcom, a company valued at more than $100 billion, shows the depth to which the chip giant feels threatened by a potential tie-up between Broadcom and its rival Qualcomm, according to The Wall Street Journal.

7. M&A Rumors- IT Outsourcing:IBM and Convergys are among contenders said to be in talks for a potential $1.2 billion acquisition of Intelenet, an outsourcing company owned by Blackstone Group, the world’s largest alternative asset manager, according to Economic Times.

3. Private Equity – IT Buyouts: Private Equity firms acquired or invested in 823 IT firms in 2017, up from 722 in 2016, according to this analysis of Preqin.

2. Private Equity Warning: Dig through this article and you’ll learn how private equity borrowing practices could tank the U.S. economy. In short, it states:

If private equity firms manage to blow up their current funds by using too much borrowed money to overpay for target companies, it will cause severe disruption in the markets – and could even bring the stock market’s nine-year-old party to an end.

What can we do about it? We can be aware that, in the past, when PE firms have been willing to use this much debt to pay this high a price, it indicated the party was winding down.

1. Alleged Corruption & IT Services: Corruption investigators in Ohio’s Cuyahoga County have served three more subpoenas on the administration of County Executive Armond Budish. The subpoenas request records that include deleted emails from accounts of several officials, and the investigation could involve the county’s relationship with IT services providers, according to Cleveland.com.